Understand
by Out-Of-Control-Authoress
Summary: Her eyes traveled to the little boy in the doorway, peering at her with curiosity as she stood there in the yard. For the time being, Shiori Minamino didn't need to understand.


Here's my wonderful little one shot that was cooked up at eleven-thirty on a Thursday night. Yeah…it's written out of sleep deprivation, and a little too much Yu Yu episode watching.

Yay, Breaking Dawn comes out in two days! (Sorry, I've been anticipating that for over a month now)

Disclaimer: Yu Yu Hakusho is not owned by little ol' me.

_Edited February 26th, 2010_

_The reason why I redid this was because I always felt strongly about this one shot. I also felt that I didn't do the concept as much justice as I should have. Thus - a rewrite. :) _

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho.

A Tribute to Shiori and Shuichi Minamino

_Understand_

After years and years of watching, observing from her carefully constructed sidelines, Shiori Minamino had come to the conclusion that she would never understand.

She would never understand that red-haired, green-eyed enigma that was her son. It just wasn't possible for her to comprehend. Every single time she said good morning to that little boy who came down the stairs, she was greeted with cold, calculating eyes. Eyes that didn't belong to a young, innocent child.

Which was where the fear began. It began every morning, when he came down the stairs in his too-big pyjamas. She'd look up from making his breakfast every, single morning, only to be greeted with cold, calculating eyes.

Eyes that didn't belong to a small child. Eyes that didn't belong to her _son_, and yet were still there. Dark, dark green eyes that bespoke a lifetime, but were impossible to decipher.

Shiori was very afraid of what was behind those eyes, of what lay in her son's story that she didn't know. She was terrified of the things that lurked in the back of his irises, whispering horrible verses of terrible, terrible times. Things that she couldn't even comprehend. Things that her son shouldn't have known.

He always behaved like that - like someone a thousand years older than he was. She spoke to his teachers at school, worried when he didn't ever bring friends home, worried that he didn't even bother to lie to her that he played with no one.

The teachers, year after year, said the same thing. They told her about how he was such a good student. He was just awkward with other children, they'd say. He was polite and pleasant to them, he was never rude, he just didn't want to play with them. Sometimes, children were like that. They assured her that he was a perfectly normal, very intelligent young boy. A strapping young boy. She should be proud of him.

Then they'd offer to move him up a grade. They thought that he needed schoolwork that was more challenging for him. He was well beyond his years, academically. Perhaps, they'd always suggest, he would be more comfortable with kids that were older. Kids that were at his maturity level.

Shiori declined that offer every time. She doubted that Shuichi would ever meet a child within a ten-year range that was as mature as he was. His uncanny ability to control everything he did, every emotion he could possibly feel, was far beyond the capabilities of most adults. How was he to find similarities in other children?

She loved him. She loved him, but she was always worried. Shuichi wanted no pets. He didn't watch television, play video games, or enjoy countless hours on the home computer. He politely refused every child who came to play with him. He had to do his homework. He wasn't feeling well.

He had a million excuses for why he wouldn't see them. It was a wonder they still came to call. Still, the children were so enraptured with her strange, little son that they swallowed his lies every time. They always came back, hoping that his homework would be finished, or that his headache had gone away.

She always told him to stop lying to the other children. Lying was not a good habit to begin. Shuichi would just look up at her, with those wide, horrible eyes, and smile. He was making a child's smile, but she could see the amusement behind it. Like he saw her as an idiot to scold him.

He would apologize, looking sheepish and fidgety like any child should, and then he'd scamper off into the yard to tend to his garden.

Yes, the garden. It confused her almost as much as the rest of it. Shuichi loved his garden. He was such a good little gardener, for a child so very young. He was so gentle, so careful with his plants. It was almost like he was touching children. He was always so calm and careful with them, making sure that he did everything perfectly to ensure their care.

No child should have understood such calm, careful behaviours. Shuichi had exercised nothing but this attitude.

What Shiori could never put together, however, was "why".

How could she ever understand why her beautiful little boy was so unlike every other child? How could she comprehend what went on in that enigmatic mind of the child she'd thought that she'd raised?

She couldn't. That was why she was afraid - so, so very afraid for her baby boy. That story his eyes told her, that story that made so little sense and yet showed such awful experience...she was terrified of that. Of the nature of whatever he'd experienced to have caused this.

She couldn't ask him. If she asked him, she knew he wouldn't tell the truth.

"Shuichi, dear, what are you doing up there?"

Those cold, green eyes stared down at her from the branch of the cherry blossom tree in the front yard. The eight-year-old boy didn't say anything to her in response. He just stared in utter silence, a feat no normal child could easily accomplish.

Unlike other children, Shuichi had always preferred silence. He was more comfortable, that way.

Shiori took two steps towards the tree, placing her hands against the cool, rough bark. She raised her head again, looking straight up at him. At her little boy.

"Come in for lunch, Shuichi," she said, raising her hands upwards, as if to catch him, should he jump. She knew that he wouldn't.

"No," he answered plainly, one of his own arms extended to gently cup one of the cherry blossoms of a branch near to him.

She knew the refusal would come. It always did. Usually, she'd give up. Today, she decided otherwise.

"Please?" she asked, still smiling at him. She stood on her tip-toes, a small effort to close some distance between herself and her child.

Those eyes studied her for a moment. Shiori felt like a test subject, being analyzed and scrutinized for study. It made her almost uncomfortable. Then she realized, almost startlingly, that those eyes belonged to her son, not to a stranger.

So why did she feel like a stranger, when he looked at her like that?

"Please come down, Shuichi." She could feel the panic, the panic that she was losing yet another battle, creeping into her voice. "I don't want you to fall and get hurt."

"Why would you care?" the bitter voice of her child asked, in a voice that did not belong to a child. He sounded a hundred years old - embittered by hardship after hardship. She could not recall Shuichi ever experiencing anything of the sort.

She stared dumbly at him for a moment. He gave a little snort, and looked away, irritated. Like a superior being, looking down upon something beneath them.

"Shuichi," she began carefully, touching her hand to his leg, the only thing that she could reach. "I can't give you a reason why. I don't need a reason. You're my son. I love you with all of my heart."

It hurt, that he never seemed to love her back. Still, Shiori knew that she would forever go on loving him. She didn't have the capacity to stop.

His face grew confused, as if what she had just said was incomprehensible.

"Please come down," she murmured, so quietly that she couldn't be sure that he'd heard her.

A hand was on hers, the one she'd placed on his leg. Her head snapped up in surprise. Two eyes, blazing with confusion, as if he'd never considered her words.

"Is that an honest truth?" he asked her slowly, hand curling around her own. It wasn't a loving clutch. He was holding her hand to keep her there, to continue the interrogation.

He let go of her hand, then, and motioned that he was going to jump down. She moved a few steps back, and watched as he jumped out of the tree, on too-lithe legs, with ability that no eight-year-old should have had.

Then again, when had he ever acted his age?

"Is that an honest truth", he'd asked. He hadn't said "really?" or "are you lying?". Instead, he spoke with words that were more formal and unusual than even her father had used. Like he was speaking an old Japanese that came from a place where time had stopped, stuck in an ancient world.

"Please answer," he requested, no emotion detectable in his young voice.

Once again, Shiori was startled into silence. She couldn't understand why he was so...distrusting of her. It was just another thing that she _couldn't understand_. Where had she gone wrong? What had she done to make her son believe that he couldn't trust her? What had she said to make him think she didn't love him?

She was a terrible mother.

His eyebrows drew down at her lack of answer, his expression turning more frigid by the second.

"So you lie, then." His voice was clear, like a bell ringing through the silence. There was disappointment on his face, like he'd expected more from her.

As he should have.

He turned back to the tree, as if to climb it again.

Shiori put a hand on his shoulder to stop him, and he whirled back towards her, his hand going up to his hair. There was a fierceness in his eyes that vanished almost as instantly as it'd appeared, as if he'd acted on reflex to an invisible enemy.

Shiori couldn't take that. She was on her knees in a second, pulling him into her arms. He stumbled at how urgently she'd grabbed him, and she could feel him make a very sharp intake of breath.

"Shuichi," she whispered into his shoulder, "don't ever doubt that I love you."

The sadness and complete aching that she'd felt for so, so long began to work its way to the surface. Her shoulders began to shake. Tears pricked at the corner of her eyes.

"I will never stop loving you," she continued, her voice cracking, "no matter what. You're my baby boy."

When she unhooked her arms from around his small body, she was met with eyes that looked even more bewildered than before. He remained silent and just stood, statuesque, where he was.

Shiori put a hand to his cheek and smiled, the hand moving to the top of his head as she stood up. "How about I bring your lunch outside, Shuichi? Then you can eat it up in the cherry blossom tree, as long as you promise to be careful. How does that sound?" she wiped the tears from her eyes, hoping that he hadn't seen them.

"Fine, thank you," he answered politely, though his eyes were still swirling with confusion and curiosity, as if he were deciding what to make of her behaviour.

"Is there something wrong, Shuichi?" she asked him, addressing the way he was watching her. She wanted to understand him, more than anything. She wanted him to come to her when he needed her. She wanted to be every bit the mother that he deserved. She needed that as much as she knew that he did.

She didn't care if her attempts were in vain. She felt victory that his eyes weren't cold anymore. The mask had dropped from his face for the first time in her memory.

He shook his head in response, still silent. His hands balled into fists, an expression of disgust flitting across his features. That confusion, though, that inability to fully comprehend, was the most childlike thing she'd seen from him in years.

Shuichi took a silent step towards her, hesitantly, tentatively, as if he were unsure of something. Shiori remained rooted to the spot, allowing him to discover the answer to whatever question he'd formed on his own. She would allow him that, if it made him trust her.

After all, his confusion seemed to be her fault.

But when she looked at his eyes again - really, really looked, she saw the strangest thing. As he approached her, ever so slowly, it looked as if he were testing to see how she'd react. He wasn't questioning himself.

He was questioning _her_, like he was preparing for her to scream and run at any given moment. It almost took her breath away - that he could think anything like that. How could she ever do something like that to her beautiful, baby boy?

Shiori didn't understand.

He stopped in front of her, his eyes half-lidded. His hands were at his sides, still clenched into tight, little fists. His lips were set in a grim line, his face pale with self-conflict.

"I want to...try something," he murmured, his head snapping down, breaking eye contact. His brow creased, as if he couldn't decide whether or not what he was going to do would be a good idea. Like he was questioning himself.

He'd never seemed so young. Not once before in his entire life.

She waited patiently, clasping her hands together tightly in anticipation.

"Please, mother," he said slowly, his voice raspy with what could only be described as emotion, "can you kneel for me?"

Shiori blinked, puzzled by his request. She complied instantly, though, kneeling down to eye-level with her little eight-year-old boy. She smiled warmly, urging him on.

To her surprise, he did the most obvious, most un-Shuichi-like thing in the world. He raised his little arms up, very carefully, and hugged her around the neck, resting his head on her shoulders.

Shiori gasped, arms instinctively wrapping around him. It was the first time.

Tears sprang up in her eyes. It was the first time Shuichi had ever just hugged her of his own accord. It was the very first time.

He shifted, signalling for Shiori to let go. He pulled away from her body, blinking at her. His hand went to her face, his finger touching her cheek for a second. When his hand pulled away, there was wetness on his finger.

"Why are you crying?" he asked, sounding concerned. "Did I do something wrong?"

Shiori smiled, tears shining as they fell down her cheeks.

"No," she said, taking his hand in both of her own, "no, not at all. I'm just very, very happy, Shuichi." She removed one hand to wipe at her cheeks with the sleeve of her shirt.

Shuichi looked unconvinced. "Humans cry when they're sad," he stated in an even tone. It sounded like a text book definition, delivered clear and concise. Simple fact.

His eyes went cold again, that emotion she'd seen in him receding back behind the barrier. Shiori's heart clenched painfully.

In spite of that, though, she laughed. "No, Shuichi," she told him, tapping a finger to his nose.

He blinked. "No?"

"No," she confirmed, nodding. "Humans cry when they're happy, too."

He looked very, very curious at this revelation. Then his expression changed, and he looked a little sceptical. "Why would they do that?"

"When we're happy," Shiori explained, "we cry sometimes. It's the purest way that we show emotion. Humans cry when they're very sad, yes, but we also cry when we're very, very happy."

"Why are you so happy?"

The innocent question could only have come from a child. From someone young in the ways of human life.

Shiori took his hand and placed it against his chest, right above his heart. "Because when you hugged me, it came from there. It came from your heart," she gave his hand a little squeeze, "and I'm glad."

A ghost of a smile flashed across his face. "It did," he agreed. "I wanted to say thank you."

"For what, Shuichi?" she asked him, taking her hand from his and cupping his cheek.

"For everything," he answered simply, his eyes trailing up to the sky, as if he were suddenly at peace with something. His lips curved upwards into a slow smile. It was breathtaking for her to see.

She couldn't help but smile too. He'd never looked so happy before. This was the first time she'd seen him not look calculating or cold. Today, her son had finally come to terms with a part of himself. She was so, so very glad.

Shiori took her hand off of his face to gently ruffle his hair. He made a small noise of protest, but otherwise did nothing to stop her. "Now, how about that lunch? Should I bring it out?"

"No," he said to her, leaning over to kiss her cheek so gently, so quickly that it was like a butterfly's kiss. "That won't be necessary, mother." He moved around her, trotting towards the house.

Shiori brushed her cheek, eyes wide. Her baby boy...

She took a deep, cleansing breath, closing her eyes and smiling up to the sky. Her hands went to her chest, to her own heart, and she opened her eyes again, to the beautiful cherry blossom tree in her front yard.

"Thank you," she whispered after him, though she knew that he wouldn't hear her.

The blossoms of the tree twirled and danced in the light breeze, peaceful now, like her son was. She nodded to herself, feeling a small welling of satisfaction. She could heal this. They could become a family. She knew that they could.

Shuichi had made a small breakthrough with himself, today. Shiori was so, so glad for that. Maybe he could understand himself, where she could not.

Her eyes traveled to the little boy in the doorway, peering at her with curiosity as she stood there in the yard. Those eyes weren't cold anymore. There was something different behind those deep, deep green eyes.

She smiled.

For the time being, Shiori Minamino didn't need to understand.

_End_


End file.
